The use of landmines anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union

"The decision by the United States Government to re-authorise the use of anti-personnel mines by US military forces outside of the Korean Peninsula undermines the global norm against anti-personnel mines. A norm that has saved tens of thousands of people in the past twenty years", said a statement by the European Union issued this week.

"The majority of mine victims are children. The conviction that these weapons are incompatible with International Humanitarian Law has led 164 States to join the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, including all Member States of the European Union.

Their use anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union.

The EU and the US are both major donors for mine action assistance worldwide, supporting mine clearance, mine risk education, victim assistance and stockpile destruction. The re-authorisation of the use of anti-personnel mines is not only a direct contradiction to these actions but also negatively affects the international rules-based order."

The EU counts on the US to remain a partner and a top provider of anti-mine action assistance, said the statement.

source: commonspace.eu with the press service of the EEAS

 

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EU interior ministers reach "historic" agreement on migration, but significant opposition remains
Interior ministers from the European Union's 27 member states reached a deal on the bloc's migration policy yesterday (8 June) after some 12 hours of negotiations at a meeting in Luxembourg. The agreement outlines how responsibility for looking after migrants and refugees who arrive in the EU without authorisation is shared out among member states, a topic which has been the source of much disagreement since 2015, when well over 1 million migrants and refugees entered the EU, many of them fleeing the war in Syria. Under the deal agreed yesterday and set to be finalised ahead of a 2024 EU election, each country would be responsible for a set number of people, but would not necessarily have to take them in. Countries unwilling to receive irregular migrants and refugees arriving ad hoc to the EU would be able to help their hosting peers through cash - around 20,000 euros per person - equipment or personnel, reports Reuters. The agreement would introduce a new expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from lingering inside the bloc for years.
patrickn97 Fri, 06/09/2023 - 10:37